"Quentin!" she cried. "Oh, my boy—my little boy! You aren't going to behave like a cad."
"But I am a cad, my dear Janey."
He spoke brutally, in the stress of feeling.
"Oh, Quentin!—Quentin!"
She was losing not only her calm, but her dignity—yet she did not heed it. She sprang towards him, seized his hands, and gasped her words close to his ear, as unconsciously he turned his head from her.
"Quentin, you can't forsake me—not now—not after all I've given you—you can't, you can't! You loved me so much—you love me still. You can't have stopped loving me all of a sudden like this. And if you love me, you can't forsake me. Quentin, I shall die if you forsake me."
"Janey—let me explain. I can't explain if you're so frenzied. Oh, Janey, don't faint."
She fell back from him suddenly, and he caught her in his arms.
The soft weight of her, her warmth, the familiar scent of her hair and her tumbled gown, snatched him back into departing days. He suddenly lost his self-command, or rather his sense of the present. He clasped her to him, and kissed her and kissed her—as eagerly, passionately and tenderly as ever in Furnace Wood. She did not resist or shrink, her eyes were closed, and she lay back a dead weight in his arms, drinking her last despairing draught of happiness.... His clasp grew tighter—oh, that he would crush the life out of her as she lay there under his lips!...
Then suddenly he dropped his arms, and they staggered back from each other, piteously conscious once more of the present and its doom.